Paul's catalogue of "works of the flesh" and Christ's image of tombs hidden beneath the surface — these are not moral scoldings but precise psychological descriptions of how a human being can live entirely from a layer of self that is, in a real sense, already dead. These reflections draw on the esoteric interpretive tradition represented by Maurice Nicoll, but they press further into a question any honest psychologist must eventually face: what is the relationship between the appearance of virtue and the actual inner state of a person? The readings today make that question almost unbearably sharp.
First reading
From the letter of Paul to the Galatians — Galatians 5:18-25
But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
Now the works of the flesh are plain for all to see: adultery, sexual immorality, impurity, unbridled lust, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, quarreling, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish rivalry, division, false teaching, envy, murder, drunkenness, wild carousing, and everything of that kind. I warn you now, as I have warned you before, that those who make a practice of such things will have no share in the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-mastery. Against such things no law stands opposed.
And those who belong to Christ have nailed the flesh to the cross, together with all its passions and desires.
If we draw our life from the Spirit, then let us also order our steps by the Spirit.
Gospel
From the Gospel of Luke — Luke 11:42-46
But sorrow awaits you, Pharisees! For you carefully tithe your mint and rue and every garden herb, yet you trample past justice and the love of God. These greater things you were bound to practice, without neglecting the lesser.
Sorrow awaits you, Pharisees! For you crave the seats of honor in the synagogues and delight in respectful greetings in the public squares.
Sorrow awaits you, scribes and Pharisees, you pretenders! For you are like unmarked tombs — people walk right over them and never realize what lies beneath.
Then one of the experts in the law spoke up and said to him, "Teacher, when you say these things, you offend us as well."
And he replied, "Sorrow awaits you also, you scholars of the law! For you pile heavy loads on people's shoulders, burdens too grievous to carry, yet you will not so much as lift a single finger to ease their weight."
— Interpretation —
Let us begin with Christ’s extraordinary image. He says to the Pharisees: “You are like unmarked tombs — people walk right over them and never realize what lies beneath” (Luke 11:44). An unmarked tomb. Consider what this means. A marked tomb at least declares itself — here lies death, step carefully. But an unmarked tomb is hidden. The ground looks solid, ordinary, perhaps even pleasant, grassy. And yet beneath it there is decay. People walk over it without knowing.
This is not an insult hurled at a group of ancient religious officials. It is a diagnosis of a condition. And the condition is this: that a human being can present a surface so smooth, so socially acceptable, so thoroughly groomed in the habits of respectability, that neither the person himself nor anyone around him suspects what actually lies beneath. The inner state is one of spiritual death — and the outer appearance contradicts it entirely.
Now let us feel the weight of this. Christ does not say the Pharisees are wicked in any obvious way. He does not accuse them of murder or theft. He says they tithe their mint and rue — that is, they attend to the smallest religious obligations with meticulous care. They love the chief seats. They love to be greeted in the marketplace with respect. These are not crimes. They are the texture of a life lived entirely on the surface, a life in which the question of inner state has never once been genuinely raised.
And this connects directly with what Paul writes to the Galatians. Paul’s famous catalogue — “adultery, sexual immorality, impurity, unbridled lust, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, quarreling, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish rivalry, division, false teaching, envy, murder, drunkenness, wild carousing” (Galatians 5:19-21) — is often read as a list of sins to avoid. But look again. Paul calls these “the works of the flesh.” Not the works of evil people. The works of the flesh. That is, these are what the flesh produces when it is the governing principle of a person’s life. They are not aberrations. They are the natural, inevitable harvest of a particular level of being.
Now here is the critical point — the point where Christ’s image of the unmarked tomb and Paul’s teaching on the flesh meet and illuminate each other. The Pharisee tithes his herbs. He does not murder. He does not carouse. But Christ says he is a tomb. Why? Because the absence of gross “works of the flesh” does not indicate the presence of spirit. A tomb can be clean. A tomb can be well-tended. It is still a tomb.
Paul names the alternative harvest: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-mastery” (Galatians 5:22-23). Notice that these are called fruit — not achievements, not accomplishments, not the results of trying harder. Fruit grows. It grows from something alive. And what is alive, in Paul’s language, is the Spirit. “If we draw our life from the Spirit, then let us also order our steps by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25).
The Pharisee orders his steps — but not by the Spirit. He orders them by the law, by custom, by the craving for recognition. And so his steps are perfectly regular, perfectly visible, perfectly dead. He is the unmarked tomb par excellence: no one suspects what lies beneath because the surface is immaculate.
Now notice what happens when one of the lawyers hears Christ’s words. He says, “Teacher, when you say these things, you offend us as well” (Luke 11:45). And Christ does not soften. He says: “You pile heavy loads on people’s shoulders, burdens too grievous to carry, yet you will not so much as lift a single finger to ease their weight” (Luke 11:46). This is the final element of the diagnosis. The person who lives from the surface — from what Nicoll, drawing on the Fourth Way tradition, would call personality rather than essence — does not merely fail to come alive inwardly. He actively makes it harder for others to come alive. The heavy loads are not physical. They are interpretive. They are the dead weight of literalism, of external obligation piled upon external obligation, until the possibility of inner meaning is buried so deeply that no one even remembers it exists.
The ground looks solid. People walk right over it. And beneath — the thing no one suspects — there is only death, waiting to be acknowledged, so that something else, at last, might begin to grow.
Scripture: Unified English Version
